


140 Million Miles

by ares3, Songstone



Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: A little, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Rescue, Slow Burn, excerpt, floating tears, health exam, preslash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-05-06 13:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5418947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ares3/pseuds/ares3, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Songstone/pseuds/Songstone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots from the journey home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bedside Manner

**Author's Note:**

> from ares3watney.tumblr.com and ares3beck.tumblr.com

“I have a few questions I want to go over with you,” Beck said, forgoing a greeting as he entered his bunk with a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. “The medical team back in Houston wants to get as many details about your health as they can, and that includes a full physical and a dental exam.” He took his eyes off of his notes and glanced up to find Mark still in his bunk, computer resting on his lap. “Wanna go ahead and shut it down for a while?” he asked, gesturing to the laptop with his pen. He gave an assuring smile. “We can probably breeze through this if we get started right now.”

Mark paused before slowly shutting the screen of his laptop; the prospect of a health exam wasn’t particularly appealing, but it actually beat out the psych exam he was facing in his emails, and wasn’t that a sad lot. _How did you cope with the likelihood of death?_ Fucking hell, maybe Beck had sensed his torture and came to offer him a slightly nicer brand of sadism. It was worth being said (and whined)— Mark didn’t like health exams. “Am I allowed to sit up for this?” he asked, already carefully propping himself up on an elbow.

“Slowly.” Beck put aside his clipboard and pen and offered a hand, slipping his free arm around Mark’s neck to keep him as straight as possible as he eased into a sitting position. Mark’s ribs did their classic stabby thing, but a slightly more medically-subdued version.

“And just—” Mark said through a wince, “Just to make this easier on you, I know you have a busy schedule, so you can just write down that everything below the belt suffered no ill-effects from diet. Or strain. Or gravity. Or radiation.” He smiled sunnily at Beck, sliding his computer off his lap. The promise of breezing through this didn’t feel very likely, but Mark was sure going to do everything he could to help it come true.

Beck chuckled and shook his head. “Sorry. I know you don’t like cold hands all over you, but…” He shrugged and grabbed his clipboard again. “Can’t be helped. They want detailed reports about your physical well-being. We can do this all at once and be done with it, or I can split up the exam into three separate ones and we’ll both be right back here two more times, having this same conversation. I figure that you’d rather get this all out of the way as soon as possible.”

Mark gave an exaggerated grimace and hummed, rubbing his hands together. “I’d better get a lollipop after this,” he said with a sigh.

“How about a juice pack instead?” Beck asked with a grin. “Sadly, NASA didn’t pack any lollipops.”

Mark ran his hands through his hair, psyching himself up. Beck was right—better to bite the bullet and get all the annoying, frustrating, embarrassing, uncomfortable…was this supposed to sound like a good idea? He shook himself, then clapped his hands on his thighs and looked at Beck with a grin yanking at his mouth. “Juice is acceptable. Let’s do this thing.”

“We’ll start you off easy, okay?” Beck said, reaching down to search through the medical supply drawer beneath the bunk. He found what he needed, a thermometer and sterile cover for the earpiece. “Just your temperature and blood pressure for starters.”

He tilted Mark’s head to the side with a hand on his chin, then stuck the thermometer in his ear. Mark held more or less still for the ten seconds it took for the thermometer to read his temperature, keeping the fidgeting limited to his fingers and toes. When the thermometer beeped, Beck pulled it out and checked it, then stripped away the cover and grabbed his pen to scribble down the reading.

“Okay, you’re normal.”

“Woohoo.”

Beck put away the thermometer and set the blood pressure cuff on the bed. He hooked his fingers in the bottom of Mark’s shirt next and slowly began to lift it, giving Mark time to get his arms over his head to make disrobing much easier. Mark helped as much as he could to get it off, even though it felt a little unnecessary for blood pressure related endeavors.

“I feel like I should ask how you’re feeling, since we’re doing a medical exam,” Beck said.

“I feel like this is very opportunistic,” Mark joked, words a bit muffled from the shirt over his head. He lowered his arms as soon as his face was free to ease the strain on his ribs and shrugged out of the sleeves himself. “And now I feel cold.”

“Hush. I need to check your ribs, lungs, and heart. It’s easier with your shirt off instead of holding it up for you.”

Eyes locked on the door to Beck’s bunkroom, Mark wrapped his arms loosely around his stomach, not feeling any desire whatsoever to look at his skinny torso, or to look at Beck looking at it. But then he recalled what they were actually doing with his shirt off in the sick bay, and he offered Beck an arm for the blood pressure cuff.

Beck slipped it on and started pumping. He pressed the cold bell of the stethoscope to the skin of Mark’s forearm, listening through the earpieces as he took a seat besides him on the bunk. It took a few moments, but eventually he pulled his clipboard back into his lap and wrote down the results.

“Okay,” he said, taking the earpieces out of his ears. He deflated the cuff and stowed it away, but he kept the stethoscope around his neck. “Blood pressure is a little high. Nothing to worry about,” he assured. “It isn’t dangerously high.” Mark peered at the clipboard in Beck’s lap to see just how high they were talking. ‘stress/pain/anxiety?’ was scribbled next to the numbers. Mark ground his teeth.

“Here’s the fun part,” Beck said sarcastically, putting the stethoscope back in his ears and breathing on the bell to warm it up. He set it against Mark’s chest. “Take a breath—deep as you can.”

“Oooh, good.” Mark hung his head, mentally preparing to deliberately cause himself pain. This was just, this was going to be good. “Literal,” he said, before sucking in one slow, even breath of air. “Sadism,” he said on the exhale.

“Yeah, that basically sums up my internship,” Beck joked dryly, his eyes on the task as he moved the stethoscope from one spot to another.

Mark kept breathing steadily; it hurt like a bitch, but at least he could say he was used to it. Beck made him do breathing exercises at least once an hour (when he was awake) in order to keep his lungs clear and prevent infection. And they’d better be paying off, Beck better not be hearing anything nasty. Eyes closed, Mark concentrated on breathing past the pain. He was doing a world-class job of it, really something to be proud of, until the stethoscope lightly touched the edge of a bruise. The twinge wasn’t too bad, but he wasn’t expecting it, and Mark breathed in sharply. Shooting pain jolted across his chest like lightning, and Mark gasped again from the shock of it. Which, not a good loop to fall into.

“Fuck,” he wheezed, lifting his head and trying to straighten his posture completely without encouraging his ribs to just break off like dried twigs. Beck’s hands moved to rest in the middle of his back and against his clavicle, keeping him in a careful splint. He held his breath until the pain ebbed, then exhaled slowly.

The hands on him relaxed bit by bit, then slowly let him go. “Well…” Beck said, and Mark could hear an apology in it. “At least you’re done with the deep breathing. Just need to listen to your heart—you all right?”

Mark gave the _okay_ sign with one hand while the other scrubbed at his forehead. “I am super. I could go all day.” The pain in his ribs faded to their usual background throb, and that was nothing he couldn’t ignore. He clapped his hands and shimmied in his seat as if he were going to leap out of bed. “Alright, heart. Be good for Dr. Beck.”

Beck’s tiny grin made Mark’s heart misbehave, but not enough to prevent the thumbs up when he was finished listening through the stethoscope. Beck added more notes to his clipboard, then grabbed Mark’s discarded shirt and rolled up the sleeves before holding them open for Mark. “We can put this back on for now,” he said. “We’ll take a quick break with the physical exam so you can relax. You can answer some questions from NASA, instead.”

The shirt over Mark’s face hid his annoyed frown, which was maybe Beck’s plan. Smother him with a long-sleeved tee so he couldn’t complain. And really, Mark shouldn’t want to complain; being on the Hermes with a doctor and communication with more doctors who wanted to help him was nothing short of a _fantastic thing_ , major upward mobility from his position less than a week ago, but…yeah, Mark was going to complain. He was at least going to groan.

“Ughhkay,” he said once his shirt was on. That felt good. He lifted off the bed for a moment to yank the blanket out from under him, wrapping it the best he could around his shoulders. He hoped he looked like a grumpy old man. “What does Nosey NASA want to know?”

“Nosey NASA wants to know…” Beck began, eyes scanning the handwritten list he’d probably copied from an email. “…What you meant when you said you had an injured back on Sol 201, and how did you treat the injury?”

Mark rolled his eyes—of course NASA wanted detailed details on even the injuries that had long since healed—and slowly scooted back until he could lean against the wall next to the bunk. His eyes drooped, and he slid his computer back onto his lap just to have something to fiddle with and keep him awake.

“I pulled something lifting rocks. Like a thousand kilograms of rocks. Thought it’d be funny to build a pyramid and let the satellites wonder how it got there.” Mark yawned. “Treated with Vicodin and hot baths to relax the muscles. Worked as good as a Beck massage,” he added, smirking up at the masseuse in question.

Beck snorted and started taking notes. “How much…” he started, before his pen stopped and he looked up at Mark, probably examining him for some hint of a joke. “Hot bath? Want to tell me how you managed that? Did you just hop on over to the spa?”

Mark grinned, remembering the tub he’d made out of a cot and giving himself a mental high-five for the ingenuity. “I opened up a spa in Johanssen’s bunk.” He closed his eyes again, settling more comfortably against the wall. “Cut out the cot, laid down some canvas in the frame, and heated some water with the RTG. I had some tubing going around the heat baffles,” he said, vaguely motioning with his hands to demonstrate his design, “and I jacked the water reclaimer for its pump.” He gave an expansive gesture and a pause for effect. “And voilà. Hot baths twice a day for a week.”

“Okay… I’m sorry. The RTG? The one Commander Lewis buried when we landed?” Mark grinned, and Beck just stared at him for a moment before shaking himself and writing on his clipboard. “You heated a bath for yourself with…radiation,” he summarized, staring down at what he’d written before giving a small chuckle.

“Yup,” Mark said, enunciating the _p_ with a smile.

“That’s…completely dangerous. You took the RTG into the Hab. You used it to bathe yourself. What—” Beck paused, chewing on his cheek. “…You know what…your ingenuity is what kept you alive, and you were obviously careful, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. So.” He smiled and shook his head, looking Mark over as if he were the Grand Sultan of awesome Martian invention. Or about to sprout a second, cancerous head. Either or. “Good job with misusing the plutonium,” he finished with a chuckle.

The laughter—and the disbelief—was infectious. Mark had known what he was doing at the time, was very much aware of the fact that he was hanging out with red hot cancer-in-a-box, but now that it was all over and he could take a step back from it all… Never in any worst-case scenario training exercise would their higher-ups even _consider_ having them run through the various improvisations possible with the RTG. Mark laughed. When they’d landed on Mars, they’d dumped the RTG and never expected to see it again.

 _Plutonium_ , he mouthed, shoulders shaking from nearly silent laughter. “I’m hoping it gave me superpowers,” he said, examining his hands for any spark of magic. His ribs hurt from laughing, and he placed one hand lightly on his side, but he couldn’t quite get the incredulous giddiness under control. “Maybe it gave me like, the power of probability manipulation, and that’s how I didn’t die a thousand times. Radiation saved my life. I’m gonna win the lottery when we get back home.”

“You know, you can totally lead with that. ‘Plutonium got me off on Mars’.” Beck grinned, but the look on Mark’s face beat him. Beck’s dirty jokes were few and far between, but that made them all the more hilarious when he deigned to let one loose. It was like unwrapping the best Christmas surprise of all time. Mark pressed a fist to his mouth to trap the laughter, but his smile was wide.

“Okay…oh, wow…” Beck began, getting more serious. Back to business. “So, how much Vicodin per sol?” he asked, setting Mark’s hands back to fiddling with his laptop.

“Well, one or two every few hours.” Mark winced, trying to remember the proper dosage. “Four hours,” he corrected. “I don’t know, whenever they wore off. I didn’t count per sol.”

Beck tapped his pen against his clipboard. “One or _two_ capsules every…three or four hours?” He sighed, making a note. “It’s definitely more than recommended. You aren’t supposed to exceed eight capsules a day.” He glanced back over at Mark. “Any chronic pain that’s cropped up since then? Did you continue to take them after you were fully recuperated?”

Mark’s smile was a lot less genuine now, but he kept it in place, an easy tilt of the lips to ward against things getting a bit uncomfortable. “Well, what’s ‘recuperated’ on Mars,” he joked. “I was pretty much always sore. Still am, really.”

“Mm. You didn’t answer my question,” Beck chided. “Did you keep taking the Vicodin after your back was healed?” he repeated, more firmly this time. Mark’s jaw tightened. “Be honest, Watney. You might be causing yourself more pain in the long run if you were depending on the medicine to cope with common body aches.” He fixed a long, serious look at Mark, clearly to show him he wouldn’t be happy with jokes and avoidance. “How often, and for how long after your back was better?”

A wave of fatigue settled over Mark, and he looked down, feeling very done with this. He stood his computer up on its side, and even to him it looked pathetically like a shield, so he kept flipping it over and over on his lap.

“I kept taking a bit for a while after. A capsule with every meal for…I don’t know, a few weeks, because of _common body aches_ ,” he said, with very audible air quotes. He caught Beck wince, then looked back down, glaring at his laptop; that was not exactly how he’d describe the pain of heavy labor in a bulky EVA suit, with a shitty diet to compound things. He rolled his eyes because he was mature, then let his expression even out with a slow exhale. “But then, a little voice in my head that sounded annoyingly like you told me that was probably a bad idea. Because rationing.” He glanced up at Beck, giving in. “And because turning into Dr. House was just, not a priority.”

Beck gave a quick conciliatory nod and copied down Mark’s answer, staring at his clipboard for a while after he finished writing. Mark stared at him in the silence, trying to see the condemnation in his posture before it was laid on him with his words. But then Beck smiled, and even if it was fleeting, it was enough to drain the tension from Mark’s muscles.

“Well…the voice in your head gave you the advice I would have really given you if I’d been there, so…” Beck shrugged, looking up at Mark again. They watched each other for a moment before red tinged Beck’s cheeks and he ducked his head and scrolled his pen down his list. “I’m glad you listened to imaginary-me,” he finished, a bit quieter.

A touch of a smile quirked Mark’s lip before he let it fall. He nodded at his laptop, ready to let the discomfort go. He was just tired. “Uhm,” Beck spoke up. “They want to know what, if anything, you did for dental hygiene.” Mark looked up with a grimace. “I lost my toothbrush when the Hab popped.” He paused to think, running his tongue along his teeth. “Lost some other things…they’re just buried in the sand, I guess. So after that, which was…about a hundred and twenty sols in, I very effectively scratched the plaque off my teeth.” He smiled, decidedly closed-mouthed, then grimaced again. “You’re not actually going to stick your fingers in my mouth, are you? Not sexy.”

“Oh, sorry I’m not going to meet my quota of ‘sexy’ for the day,” Beck snorted. “They want me to check your gums, tongue, and teeth. Make sure that there isn’t any decay from any possible case of dry mouth you might have experienced.” He sighed and set his clipboard aside in order to rummage around inside of the open drawer for gloves and tongue depressors. “While I’m sure you’re an excellent scraper, I’m just going to do this anyway for the sake of formality.” He pulled the gloves on easily, then grabbed his flashlight and one tongue depressor, turning to Mark as he flicked the light on. “I’ll make it quick. You bite and you lose all juice privileges. Now, open up please.”

Mark’s grimace transitioned smoothly into a full-on pout and he moaned dejectedly before sticking his tongue out. He complied after that, though, mouth open for Beck’s perusal and even giving a very helpful ’ _aaaa_ ’. Beck was careful and clean, but the taste of plastic on his tongue and the smell of the nitrile gloves sent him back to any uncomfortable dentist appointment of his lifetime. The bonus embarrassment from knowing his teeth, and probably gums still, looked nasty as fuck made the whole experience just really pleasant. “Like wha you see?” he asked, words garbled in his open mouth.

“Don’t try to talk, Mark,” Beck mumbled. He stuck the flashlight between his own teeth to free his hands, then poked gently at Mark’s gums, making them sting. Mark’s lip curled up in a grossed out snarl, the best he could do in protest. After having his cheek yanked back and his molars _hmm_ ed at, Mark’s mouth was finally finger and tongue depressor free. He had to congratulate himself for not pulling away before the exam was done. He grimaced and swallowed a few times, trying to wash away the bad tastes from his dry mouth.

“Gums are still puffy and discolored,” Beck said, taking the flashlight out of his mouth. He reached for his pen and clipboard. “But there isn’t bleeding with physical contact, which is good. Your teeth don’t look like they have any cavities forming. You don’t have toothaches, do you?”

“Do jaw aches count?” Mark asked, rubbing a hand along his jaw as he did. He’d found himself almost constantly grinding his teeth the past year and a half. Realizing he was doing it now, he shook himself out of it and stretched his jaw until it popped.

“Possibly. I’ll make a note of it and hand it over to an actual dentist,” Chris said as he did just that, scribbling down his notes intently. “Do you have any aches or pains anywhere else that you’d like to mention?”

Mark sighed and closed his eyes, head tilting back to rest against the wall. Normally, Mark loved to complain. If it were a sport, he’d compete in the Olympics. It was a great time all around. But he usually limited himself to whining about things other people did that he thought were stupid, annoying, frustrating, or stupid. Whining about himself was not as fun. But. Ugh. He was tired, mentally and physically, and getting this done so he could nod off sounded like an excellent plan. He didn’t want to sabotage it by brushing off Chris’s questions and being visited again by Dr. Bossy Beck.

“I’ve had a headache for…” he shrugged, “A year. I only took Vicodin when I could reasonably call it a migraine, so be proud of me. My muscles are always sore, and this dose of Oxy doesn’t do shit except make me sleep, but it’s my back and neck that I’d complain about. My chest hurts, like…feels tight, heavy, I don’t know, but that’s…sort of better sometimes now. My stomach hurts whenever I eat, which is extremely annoying.”

Mark dropped his laptop and yanked the blanket tighter around his shoulders. He couldn’t even remember the first thing he’d listed, but by the sound of hurried pen scratches he felt sure he was giving the doctor brigade an invitation to quite the pity party. “Stubbed my toe once on the RTG. Which might have given me cancer. Probably not, but you never do know. My lips are _super_ chapped. Oh, and I have broken ribs.”

Mark definitely felt wide awake now. He stared at the far wall, trying hard to internalize the light tone he was using, to not think or care about where all these aches and pains came from, to not let his breathing get sharp enough to hurt from his longwinded speech. Fuck.

He didn’t look when Beck finally spoke. “Okay.” He let out a long exhale. “So…we can adjust your eating schedule. Break up your meals into even smaller snacks. That will prevent your stomach from cramping so much, and after a month or so we can go back to having you eat four times a day instead of six." He paused again. “...The OxyContin isn’t helping you with your pain?”

Pages fluttered on Beck’s clipboard. Mark shrugged.

“You should be feeling relief from at least the headache.”

Mark didn’t bother shrugging. The pen tapped against the clipboard, then stopped. Silence spun out in the bunkroom. Then, Beck shifted, turning to face Mark and scooting a little further onto the bed. “If you were taking Vicodin in larger doses, for longer than you needed…it’s possible that your body has built up something of a resistance to it. That would explain why the OxyContin isn’t easing any of your pain, and just making you tired.”

Mark should probably be feeling pretty dumb about himself and his decisions, regretful or frustrated, but whatever. If there was nothing for it, he could at least medicate with sleep. Beck gave him a sympathetic pat on the arm through the blanket and Mark leaned into the touch, so much that he had to catch himself with a hand propped on the bed when Chris pulled away again.

Beck hesitated, pen tapping just once more on his thigh. “It might also be depression, causing your pain to worsen.” Mark stilled, brows furrowed as he stared at his lap. “I know you must be getting diagnosed six ways to Sunday by Dr. Shields and her team, but…well, it’s a possibility, is all.”

Of course the Psych Squad was considering all sorts of prizes from the mental illness grab bag; Mark was halfway through filling out the MMPI, and that was _before_ the questions started getting specific to Mars. But emails from a team of pesky psychologists had a sort of distance to them that Chris, his… _friend_ who _knew_ him and was sitting right next to him, didn’t. And Mark…didn’t know what to say to that.

His gut told him he wasn’t depressed– he had so much to be happy about. He was _rescued_ , he was with his _crew_ , they were headed _home_. He wasn’t going to die alone after months of hardship and stress with no one to hear him or– okay. Maybe further investigation was warranted.

“Don’t worry.” Beck added after another moment passed in silence. “Things will start to get better. Once your body re-acclimates to your old schedule here, and you’ve gotten as much rest as possible, you’ll start to turn the corner. You’ll see.” He offered Mark a small smile, and leaned over to carefully knock shoulders with him.

Mark relaxed a bit. The words rang true to him. Any problem could be solved, anything broken could be fixed. He smiled softly and poked Chris in the arm, swaying his momentum away. “I don’t doubt it. Sounds like a solid prognosis.” He poked Chris again, suddenly kinda aware of how close he was. He’d spent most of this time with his eyes closed or determinedly looking away and his mind distanced, but now everything was very much Chris, and Mark let himself enjoy how relaxed he could feel near him. How good it felt to have him by his side. “I’ll just build up a backlog of lollipops owed when we get back to Earth,” he said, and his smile was real.

* * *

 

It felt so incredibly _good_ to be sitting next to Mark again. Chris had spent so much time mourning him, and now he was being rocked gently to one side by Mark’s poking, and he was smiling because just being around Mark made his chest tighten in a way that was totally acceptable. He chuckled and swatted playfully at Mark’s hand, leaning back over to bump his shoulder again. He stayed leaning against him for a moment, touching Mark from shoulder to hip as they sat in companionable silence for all of twenty seconds. Then, Chris happened to look away and spot his clipboard, and he remembered why he had stopped by in the first place.

“Yeah. You do that. I’ll pay you back once we’re back on Earth,” he promised with a smile. He almost hated to do it, because Mark looked so at ease sitting next to him. They were sitting close enough that Chris could see the creases around Mark’s eyes when he smiled, and he felt like he might be on the verge of doing or saying something regrettable, so actually…he’d be better off doing this now after all in order to distract himself.

“All right, break time’s over.” He pushed himself off of the bunk and stood, offering Mark a hand up. “Back to the physical. Stand up and drop your pants.”

…Not the best distraction, in retrospect.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from ares3watney.tumblr.com and ares3beck.tumblr.com

Mark hasn’t stopped grinning. Getting to read the notes on his plants has been enough to keep him occupied and get him the sort of excited that had the rest of his crew calling him a nerd, but now he’s actually getting to see them, and he’s literally shivering with excitement. Chris can actually see his fingers shaking as they walk besides each other.

It's been way too long since he's seen a living plant, as Mark's whining the past two weeks could attest to. And it's been way too long since he's gotten to be a botanist on board the Hermes (again, whining). Just walking through the pod of bunks, approaching the ladder that would take them to the core of Hermes has Mark letting out short bursts of laughter which Chris frowns mildly at.

Mark is fifteen-days rescued, but watching him move through the Hermes again makes it feel overwhelmingly _real_.

"This is awesome," Mark says, grinning at Chris. His walking looks a little stiff and laughing is surely putting a sharp strain on his ribs, but that isn’t going to hold him back, apparently. Chris had given Mark a dose of pain medication twenty minutes ago, so hopefully it had already kicked in and the pain in Mark's ribs wouldn't be too bad. "I thought we'd be back on Earth for Christmas, but Santa Beck came early this year. I hope you kept my ferns healthy enough to withstand hugs."

Not for the first time, Chris finds himself looking at Mark, seeing his grin, and he’s unable to stop himself from smiling just as wide as Mark - he just looks so happy. He'd been pretty miserable these past two weeks, only allowed to walk around the bunk in short bursts or to go to the bathroom, but now he’s on his first trip around Hermes and his excitement is contagious.

"I hope so too," Chris admits. "I did what I could, and so did Martinez, and between the two of us I think the ferns are doing quite well. Hearty little guys, y'know?" He chuckles.

They approach the ladder, and Chris hesitates for a moment before he says, "How about I go first? I can help bring you down once we reach zero-g." He turns and takes a step down, starting his slow descent. "Just don't rush yourself, and if it hurts say something and I'll help you out."

Mark waves off the over-cautious remarks with nothing close to his usual frustration, which is surprising; it seems that nothing can touch his excitement. A moment later, he’s climbing down after Chris, a little slower and a lot more cautiously - the arm motions of going down a ladder surely enough to cause a painful little twinge if he isn’t careful.

"Hey, Beck," Mark says as gravity begins to lessen its hold on his body. Soon he’s holding the ladder to keep himself from floating away, not falling down. Biting his lip to contain his excitement, he gently pushes away from the rungs to propel himself slowly down, weightless and free.

"Remember that first egress?" Mark looks down past his legs to catch Chris's eye with a playful smirk.

Chris pauses just long enough to look up at Mark and frown. "Don't you dare," he warns. Back when Ares 3 had first landed on Mars, the crew had all began egress in their designated order; Lewis, Martinez, Johanssen, Beck, Watney, Vogel. Mark, while climbing down the ladder just above Chris, had made a comment about not being able to promise that he wouldn't 'rip one' in Chris' face. Chris had told him to go ahead and do it if he had to, since he was basically inside of a bubble and the only one who would suffer would be Mark. And naturally, Martinez had proclaimed himself the first person to pass gas on Mars before Mark could have that title. Chris cringed at the memory of it all; Mark and Rick could be very middle school when it came to jokes, sometimes.

As Mark finally makes it out of the tunnel surrounding the ladder, Chris reaches out and grabs the back of his sweatpants, then his hips, pulling him the rest of the way down. The weightlessness has them bumping into one another slightly, but it isn’t unwelcome (though Chris tries to keep it to a minimum for the sake of Mark's ribs).

Chris can see Mark's smile already, and he laughs. "Okay, so grab onto my shoulders and I'll take you to the lab," he instructs.

"Aaay, piggyback ride!" Mark nods, grin breaking back out again.

Chris has to smile as Mark holds onto his arms, keeping Chris's grip securely in place on his hips. (Which is so awesome. This is so awesome.) But of course, the moment passes, and Mark begins to carefully spin Chris around until he can lightly grip his shoulders from behind.

"I just want you to know that inside I'm complaining because I can totally get around on my own, and I still have some backflips to do, but I'm letting you get away with this because piggyback rides sound fun."

"Okay, whatever you say." Chris rolls his eyes slightly, carefully touching the wall to keep himself from floating too far out of reach. He casts a quick look behind himself, grinning when he sees Mark's expression. He looks way more excited about a piggyback ride than any grown man should be, but Chris just laughs and shakes his head at him.

He pushes away from the wall a moment later and turns them in the direction of the lab, propelling them down the hall with a couple of pushes with both hands on either side of himself. It’s a smooth journey, which Chris is glad for.

"How's your stomach holding up?" He wouldn't be surprised if Mark gets a little bit of space sickness after being out of zero-g for so long, but he sincerely hopes that he won’t; vomiting with broken ribs is never pleasant.

"Right now, or are you taking advantage of my good mood to sneak in a checkup?"

"I don't sneak when it comes to check ups. I just blindside you with them."

"True," Mark says. When Chris peeks over his shoulder at him, Mark is looking around at their surroundings in much the same way a kid would look around on their first trip to Disney World. It does funny things to Chris' stomach that zero-g has nothing to do with, but he powers through it and keeps them steadily moving forward. 

"I'm fine," Mark finally answers. He _sounds_ fine, and the firm grips on his shoulders tells him so as well, so that’s a relief.

It doesn’t take long to reach the labs. Chris easily ducks into the hall that would take them to Mark's workstation and within a few short moments of gliding down the small tunnel, they’re there. "Ready?" he asks over his shoulder.

"Yeah," Mark says softly, very close to Chris's ear. Chris can feel Mark's heartbeat racing as he ends up pressed against his back, and he reaches up to pat the back of Mark's hand, gently, offering a small comfort.

Mark's workstation is as neatly organized as ever - not because Mark is a tidy person, but because everything needs to be put in its proper place when not in use, otherwise things would be floating around all over the place, making a mess. In the center of the workstation, positioned under a lamp that acts as direct sunlight, are the ferns. Their leaves float pleasantly in the weightless room, the green a stark contrast to the white walls and bright lights.

Instead of immediately letting go of Chris to hug his ferns or do a zero-g dance like Chris half-expects Mark to do, he clutches his shoulders tighter. His breath catches and he gazes around the room, overwhelmed. Chris peers up at him from over his shoulder, and the reality of it all washes over him again; Mark is really rescued. He really isn’t still on Mars - or dead. He’s really, really here, in his workstation on the Hermes where he belongs, with his healthy ferns awaiting inspection, and Chris looking over his shoulder at him.

Mark laughs, something short and a bit wet sounding, and Chris feels his heart clench. Mark lets go of his shoulder slowly, reaching out to a handhold along one wall and using it to gently propel himself the short distance to his ferns. When he gets to their table he hooks his feet in another foothold on the floor without thought, his attention devoted to the plants thriving in front of him. He gently runs his fingers along one frond, lifting up a lamina to look at the sori. The ferns are bigger than when Mark was last here. Chris has made notes on them nearly every day since Mark has been gone, and Mark has been catching up on their progress that way, but to actually see their growth is probably a small shock. It makes Mark laugh again, grin seeming permanently fixed in place.

Chris hangs back for a while, just watching, smiling and unable to steady his own heartbeat. It’s so good to see Mark back in a place where he loves to be, doing things that he loves.

A few droplets of water begin to float in the space above Mark's head, and Chris can’t stay away any longer. He pushes away from the wall and goes to set his feet in the small footholds besides Mark, reaching up to swipe a few droplets away from his own face as they invade his personal space.

"Hey, the plants have already been watered," he teases, looking at Mark. He looks so happy. His eyes are wet, but he’s still smiling, and Chris feels his heart clench almost painfully. God, he’s so happy to have Mark here again. He never thought that he would see Mark in this room again, talking to his plants, nurturing them, cracking jokes as if the ferns are an audience… It was enough to get his heart pounding heavily inside of his chest.

Mark chuckles, then turns to look at Chris, smiling and ignoring the large drops of water just barely clinging to his eyelashes. "You've been a good babysitter. How much do I owe you?"

"Maybe a couple of beers and some nachos when we get back on Earth," Chris says with a small grin as he watches Mark go back to carefully touching all of the plants, inspecting them with a careful eye.

They drift closer together, bumping shoulders lightly before they’re forced apart again. Chris reaches out, using his foothold to lean closer to Mark and clean the moisture that’s clinging to his eyelashes with one careful swipe of the back of his hand. The droplets follow his hand, and then float away harmlessly when Chris shakes them off. "Are you okay?"

Mark's smile turns to something softer as Chris gently wipes away his tears a second time (because they really are coming so quickly). Chris is so close to him; he sees it when Mark shivers, and then watches as he glances at his feet. They’re drifting away a bit, but Mark reaches out and hooks his fingers around Chris's to draw him back, fumbling for a moment before exchanging Chris's hand for a grip on the table instead.

Chris might have felt embarrassed by how so small a touch could send his heart into a frenzy, if he weren't so sidetracked by everything else. He’s _so close_ to Mark, and he drinks in every detail that he can - the way that Mark's eyes are still wet-looking, and his small smile, and even the pink hue that tints his cheeks (probably embarrassed to be seen crying over plants, but really, Chris would never make fun of him for it). God...Mark is alive. He’s here. He is really safe and sound, and easily within reach of Chris' hands and lips and - Jesus Christ, Beck, get it together.

Mark looks back up at Chris and his face is...unreadable. There’s something he wants to say. Chris can tell that much. But as much as Chris searches his face, he can’t figure it out, and he silently hopes that Mark will be the brave one and just...say something. Let something happen.

God, he could be the brave one. He could tell him right now. He could kiss him. They've basically been given a second chance at this, and he couldn’t ruin it.

Mark clears his throat, startling Chris out of his mental pep-talk, and looks away. "I'm..." he begins, eyes shifting towards a teardrop that slowly drifts between the two of them. The view through the bubble of water is wobbly and distorted. Mark catches the tear on his finger, the surface tension keeping it a spherical whole.

"Mark?" Chris asks, his voice so soft in the short distance between them. He wants to say everything all at once. He wants it to be out of his head. But he waits, watching as Mark touches his mouth, the water breaking and seeping across his skin as he rubs his lips together. Then, after a moment, Mark looks back up at Chris with a smile.

"I'm happy. Don't you know you're supposed to be happy around plants? The hippies are right, they can sense your energy. Happiness is the most important nutrient in a plant's diet. And ferns like rock music."

Chris feels the tension in his entire body slip away as he lets out a laugh - but he feels no relief. "Is that so?" he wonders. His voice is still soft and secretive. He knows then that he isn’t going to tell Mark anything. He can’t. He can’t ruin this friendship that they have, and he doesn’t want to see Mark pull away from him in disgust, or embarrassment, or discomfort. He wants to stay beside Mark and watch him smile, and hear him laugh, and he wants to be there for him as much as possible. He can’t risk a confession. Chris has never been able to 'have it all' in the past - he must be a jinx of some kind. So why take the chance of ruining something that's just fine the way it is?

"I had them listening to Simple Plan the entire time you were gone, just so you know. How do you feel about your ferns thriving under the constant supervision of a Canadian Pop-Punk band instead of The Clash?"

That breaks the spell. Mark's face twists up into a mix of abject horror and sorrow. Chris laughs, watching and listening as Mark turns back towards the ferns and begins apologizing for leaving them with Chris and his 'sad, emo, music'.

His heart still feels heavy, and Chris is more than a little down about the turn that things have taken. But he can’t stay sad forever. Not with Mark laughing, and grinning, and looking at Chris like he'd personally hung the moon and the stars.

He might not have gotten his kiss - he might not have _confessed_ \- but...today was still a good day.


	3. The Pneumonia Diaries: Pt. 1

Mark finishes replying to another message on the bizarre experience that is these new blogs and moves on to the next. He coughs, eyes shut tight against the sudden flare of pain in his ribs. This needs to stop. He’s spent most of his alone time in the bunk coughing on and off, not paying it much mind except for the fact that it’s hell on his broken ribs. Jaws clenched, he glares at his laptop and starts typing out an answer to the very important question of whether or not he likes Nutella. The click of his keyboard sounds loud in a way that catches his attention. Beck isn’t typing on his own laptop anymore.

His head is angled towards Mark, and his stare is notably curious and concerned all at once. “Are you okay?” He eventually asks. “Do you need water, or something?”

Mark frowns at Beck, considering. He swallows, the power of suggestion making his throat dry. “I guess,” he says, in response to both questions. The obvious concern in Beck’s attention is uncomfortably foreboding, and Mark clears his throat to try to shake off the feeling. It only makes him cough once more, and then again, and fuck, that hurts.

“Okay,” Beck says as he carefully slides off of the hammock. “Take it easy. Have some water, and settle your coughing. I’m gonna want to listen to your lungs after this passes.” His tone is calm and even in a way that makes Mark sense doom. He grabs a water pack from just beneath the cot, where he’s been storing them ever since Mark came to permanently camp out in his bunk room. He also grabs the pillow off of the hammock just across from the cot and holds it out for Mark to take. “Hold that against your chest while you cough to help you sit up straight. Don’t press too much. It might relieve some of the pain.”

Mark blindly takes the pillow offered to him and fumbles it across his chest as he coughs one more time. The pain is intense, an acute torture that tells him exactly where his ribs are broken and radiates out through his whole chest, but the pillow keeps his torso upright and supported and he’s spared the extra pain of hunching in on himself.

It takes time to recover; he wants to gasp back all the air he’s lost, but that would only make him cough some more, so he focuses on slowing his panting under Beck’s weighty watch. When he can draw an easy breath again he looks up and smiles despite the unease he feels. “Space dust,” he says, taking the water pack from Beck and drinking half of it in one go.

“Mm,” Beck hums. He’s already bent at the waist and digging around for his stethoscope.

“Okay…you’re going to have to take a deep breath for me, okay?” Beck says once the earpieces are in and he’s breathed on the stethoscope to warm it. Mark lodges his complaint in the form of a groan; his ribs have only just stopped throbbing, and now he’s gotta breathe deep enough to punch them with his lungs.

Beck places the stethoscope against Mark’s back, one hand resting on Mark’s shoulder to keep him still as he prepares to listen. “Ready? Deep breath,” he instructs, focused on the sounds of Mark’s lungs as he breathes.

Mark’s eyes are on him. He sees the instant Beck knows something is wrong.

The stethoscope shifts to a different spot. “Again.”

Fuck. His jaw is clenching.

“One more time…”  

He sighs.

"Okay, that’s…that’s enough.”

Beck leans back and Mark loosens his hold on the pillow, letting it drop to his lap. “So…” he starts, with a hopefulness that definitely isn’t supported by the look on Beck’s face. “Happy, healthy lungs?”

Beck winces and shakes his head. “Afraid not,” he answers at last, meeting Mark’s eyes as he looks over his shoulder. "I think you’ve come down with pneumonia.”

He’d discussed this with Mark before, of course – during every coughing exercise, he had to remind Mark that it was for his own good. ( _“You don’t want pneumonia, do you?” “I laugh in the face of pneumonia.”_ )

Mark stares at Beck blankly for a moment, the disappointment, frustration, and tiny bit of fear not really diminished for all that he expected the diagnosis.

Well, fuck. 

A laugh startles him, and so does the next one, and he’s laughing until he’s coughing, and coughing, and coughing.

Fuck, his ribs hurt, and when Beck presses the pillow back against his chest he clutches it like a shield.

“Shit,” Beck says, rubbing gentle circles along Mark’s shoulders. “Easy, Mark. Reign it in.”

Mark fights to catch his breath, and tugs up a smile once he’s managed it. “Awesome. Another shitty first in my record book.”

Beck sighs and gives his shoulder a firm squeeze. “Don’t worry. This isn’t particularly great news, but at least it’s treatable. We’ll start you on antibiotics right away. And I’ll up your pain medicine, to help with the coughing.”

He’s already hustling to go rummage inside his medical drawers, all nervous…guilty energy. Mark can see it in his eyes when he gives him an assuring smile.

Mark is about to say something, likely self-deprecating about his own shitty immune system, when Beck reaches out and carefully places a hand against the side of his face. Almost cradling it in his palm.

Whatever words were on Mark’s tongue are burned away, his cheeks heating with blush to match Beck’s.

Then Beck moves his hand to Mark’s forehead.

“Hm. No fever,” he says with a firm nod. He takes his hand back.  "I’ll get you well again in no time. Promise. Unfortunately…we’re going to have to cancel your trips around Hermes until you get better. Sorry. You probably aren’t contagious, but…we still don’t want you coughing all over everyone.“ Beck smiled, then focused on locating the medicine.

Mark directed a fatalistic smile at Beck’s back. “Fan-fucking-tastic.”

**Author's Note:**

> These narratives follow the events unfolding during the journey back to Earth on the ask blogs ares3watney.tumblr.com and ares3beck.tumblr.com. Follow the blogs for log entries, fanmail, private thoughts and more! If you want to join the rp group as another member of the crew, please get in touch with me at ares3watney -- we'd love to have you!!


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